Pipeline Visionaries

This episode features an interview with Rachel Konrad, Chief Brand Officer at The Production Board, a holding company established to solve the most fundamental problems that affect our planet, by reimagining global systems of production across food, agriculture, biomanufacturing, human health and the broader life sciences.In this episode, Rachel shares with us her take on conventional marketing, why the most disruptive companies are the ones who think from a tech and marketing perspective, and the need to throw out the incumbent’s chess board and play your own game. Rachel also shares her mission for crafting brand intent first and foremost in order to make greater customer impact.Key Takeaways:Conventional marketing doesn’t always cut it. It’s hard to be disruptive in a busy marketing space with your brand if you aren’t willing to throw out the way everyone has done the same thing in the past.You can cut anything in your budget. Especially in startups, hire people who are swiss army knives to keep costs low and who give you the ability to internally support your company better.Craft brand intent first. If you don’t know who you are and what your purpose is, you cannot create effective campaigns that reach your target audience(s) well.Quote:“It's actually a lot easier than you think if you break it down into these, what does the consumer want? What does the consumer care about? And everything else is just not even something you should over, overly worry about. You just have to be in the same zone of the incumbents on those, but you have to dominate the few things that really profoundly matter to the customer. The goal is not for us to be thumping our chests, telling our story, in our own words, using a lot of marketing jingo. The goal is users. The goal is having user generated content, having your true believers, your advocates, and... Convincing and converting the non-believers, right? That is the goal.”Episode Timestamps: *(07:17) - The Trust Tree: Disruptive companies throw out the incumbent’s chess board*(38:04) - The Playbook: Don’t get too precious about any of your uncuttables*(48:29) - Quick Hits: Rachel’s Quick HitsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for Demand Gen pros. The world's leading enterprise brands trust Qualified to instantly meet with buyers, right on their website, and maximize sales pipeline. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Rachel on LinkedInLearn more about The Production BoardLearn more about Caspian Studios Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This episode features an interview with Analisa Dominic, CMO at Opengear, a company that delivers secure, resilient access and automation to critical IT infrastructure, even when the network is down. In this episode, Analisa shares with us how marketing and sales work as one team at Opengear, the importance of getting clear on your buying persona before setting strategy, and why she put Darth Vader in a photo booth. Analisa also shares her experience being a disruptor in the marketing space and how she enables her team and encourages new CMOs to be bold and different.Key Takeaways:Be bold. In order to stand out in the marketing landscape, you have to unabashedly embrace new and unique marketing methods to connect with your customers. Creativity is free.Get to a place where your customers love you. When your customers truly love you, they're your best advocates for quality referrals and so much more.Remember why you were hired in your marketing role. If you were hired to disrupt the space, then disrupt. Quote: “It's really being able to understand the buying persona then creating the strategy. Because if you think you understand the buying persona and you create a strategy, it doesn't matter how good the strategy is, if you're not speaking to them in the right way, in the right times and pulling all those levers, you're never gonna be successful. So, I think there, when you set strategy, it's also important to have that alignment with the sales organization. What's important to you? What are you trying to hit? What are your target customers? Who are gonna be making those decisions, et cetera, et cetera. So it's not just a marketing strategy, it's a business strategy.”Episode Timestamps: *(02:47) - The Trust Tree: Opengear is the silent ninja for all engineers*(14:46) - The Playbook: Darth Vader in a photo booth*(33:51) - The Dust Up: Bring all the stories you can*(37:09) - Quick Hits: Analisa’s Quick HitsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for Demand Gen pros. The world's leading enterprise brands trust Qualified to instantly meet with buyers, right on their website, and maximize sales pipeline. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Analisa on LinkedInLearn more about OpengearLearn more about Caspian Studios Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This episode features an interview with TJ Waldorf, CMO at 1WorldSync, the leader in Product Content Orchestration.In this episode, TJ shares the true value in customer case studies and what that can do for the sales team, why brand and demand aren’t mutually exclusive, and the importance of understanding what your business is trying to accomplish. TJ also talks about why alignment across teams is critical to marketing success. Key Takeaways:Brands should refresh and reposition to be sure they’re resonating with their buying groups. Buyer needs and wants change over time, and brands need to be flexible and evolve to meet those changing demands. Brand and demand go together.Build up a backlog of customers who are willing to help your brand. Customer case studies provide endless value and opportunity for businesses to market their brand. An investigative approach will lend more answers to the questions brands really want to know from their customers.Teams must be aligned to experience the greatest success. Get as granular as possible cross-functionally so everyone sees the same vision and is on the same page.Quote:“ I mean, it goes back to, is that asset distinctive? Right? Like if you want them to think about a certain series, like for us, if we wanted to think about or have marketers think about a certain series different than the IT team or the master data team, you know, how do we make that distinctive so when a marketer sees it's not kind of blending in with some of the other stuff that we might be doing that speaks to a different audience.”Episode Timestamps: *(03:30) - The Trust Tree: Refreshing brand to reevaluate persona needs*(15:38) - The Playbook: Brand and demand go together*(30:36) - The Dust Up: Quick responses aren’t always best*(31:34) - Quick Hits: TJ’s Quick HitsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for Demand Gen pros. The world's leading enterprise brands trust Qualified to instantly meet with buyers, right on their website, and maximize sales pipeline. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with TJ on LinkedInLearn more about 1WorldSyncLearn more about Caspian Studios Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This episode features an interview with Efrat Ravid, CMO at Quantum Metric, a pioneer in Continuous Product Design, helping business and technology teams align faster on customer needs and prioritize the opportunities that will drive the most value. In this episode, Efrat takes us on a deep dive into Quantum Metric’s continuous product design approach, the endless benefits of hearing directly from your customers, and the importance of data accessibility across entire teams. Efrat also shares with us how Quantum Metric provides opportunities for their customers to release with confidence and warns all CMOs to stay away from marketing campaigns that do not work for your customers. Key Takeaways:Modern marketing is all about customer relationships. If you don’t know your customers and ask for (and accept) their honest feedback, you are leaving a lot of untapped potential on the table. Encourage customers to share feedback in their own words.Embrace industry dynamics and lean into continuous product design. The purpose of new initiatives isn’t always about selling more products; it’s about continuous improvement to our products for the benefit of our customers.Feedback in your customers’ own words creates marketing magic. The more companies try to force language out of their customers, the less useful customer feedback truly is.Quote:“And then we ask them a different question, and they ask them, what's the value the product actually brings you? Like, forget about what we tell you, what you and the word they use were completely different. They were talking about releasing with confidence. So every time you have an update on your website, you need to release and think about your airline, like United Airlines and you need to release, you can break so many things, right? Or think about [if] you are a bank like US Bank and people can stop, withdraw money because of a mistake you make and it can have a real impact. So releasing with confidence was an amazing value. Another thing they mentioned is being able to test and try again and again and not be afraid of that.”Episode Timestamps: *(04:08) - The Trust Tree: All marketing efforts are focused on the customer: their journey and their feedback*(22:58) - The Playbook: Why Efrat’s not married to any particular tactic; anything can be cut if it needs to be*(31:44) - The Dust Up: There’s an ongoing healthy tension between sales and marketing*(34:29) - Quick Hits: Efrat’s Quick HitsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for Demand Gen pros. The world's leading enterprise brands trust Qualified to instantly meet with buyers, right on their website, and maximize sales pipeline. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Efrat on LinkedInLearn more about Quantum MetricLearn more about Caspian Studios Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This episode features an interview with Juliette Kopecky, CMO at Link Squares, the company behind the AI-powered contract management platform of choice for legal teams aiming to move their business forward faster.In this episode, Juliette shares with us her strategies for defining and creating good content and how to meet customers where they are, her focus on creating stronger customer connections, and the importance of bringing varied skill sets in house in order to match the change of pace within the marketing industry.Key Takeaways:It’s crucial to understand how your customers interact with your content and why. Not only does this help your team to better understand your target personas, but it also helps create better connections with prospects and customers.Now more than ever, bringing skill sets in-house is key to marketing success. A skilled and diverse team allows for resilience against the pace of change within the marketing industry.Eliminate what doesn’t perform well for you. Create meaningful results, not just leads, and when you do this over time there’s less to cut in your business.Quote:“And I think for us, that's what we always think about is what is that piece of content or topic area that we wanna build upon that our audience cares about and what is going to be like that best medium for it. And sometimes it can be the same topic area and different pieces of it, like a bite-sized piece of content might work well in an audio podcast, whereas a detailed sort of step-by-step here's how you use the product goes really nicely with, with doing maybe a video tutorial or a written out piece of document. And I think, and I think that's so much about, like marketing is thinking about like that content and what is the vehicle, and then really matching it to your buyers and your prospects. What their needs and how they prefer to consume that content.”Episode Timestamps:*(03:56) - The Trust Tree: Making the backend processes easier for legal teams and increasing ROI by 352%*(24:17) - The Playbook: Eliminating what’s not performing so you don't have to cut anything else*(29:20) - The Dust Up: How you approach conflict is key*(30:24) - Quick Hits: Juliette’s Quick HitsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for Demand Gen pros. The world's leading enterprise brands trust Qualified to instantly meet with buyers, right on their website, and maximize sales pipeline. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Juliette on LinkedInLearn more about LinkSquaresLearn more about Caspian Studios Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This episode features an interview with Shafqat Islam, CMO at Optimizely, a leading digital experience platform (DXP) that equips teams with the tools and insights they need to create and optimize in new ways.In this episode, Shafqat shares his core company beliefs around marketing, the journey of cutting Optimizely’s budget to zero and starting over, and how he and his team are getting scrappy and going back to the drawing board to start afresh with their marketing strategies. Shafqat also gets transparent about what it’s been like to be a first time CMO and the advantages that presents him in his new role.Key Takeaways:For long term business success, you have to have a solid digital presence, create awesome content that keep your customers coming back for me, and utilize creativity and science to provide unparalleled customer experiences.Sometimes, you have to scratch it all and start over. By cutting their company budget to zero and starting afresh, Shafqat and his team now run a leaner and more scrappy marketing organization. Anything measurable is uncuttable, anything unmeasurable is cuttable. Be ruthless about what your output is and how it affects your input.Quote:“We wanted to get a lot scrappier, a lot more entrepreneurial, a lot cheaper, like spend a lot less money, even though we have big budgets and it just requires a different type of person, right? And so, as I mentioned, sometimes some people opted out. Some were encouraged to find a better fit somewhere else. And the entire leadership team in our marketing org turned over very quickly…So they all left and all the people who were doing the job one level below got promoted into the new marketing leadership team, and they've absolutely crushed it. Like I'm so proud of them because they were just waiting in the wings to take on more responsibility. Get shit done, prove that we can run a very different type of scrappy marketing organization.”Episode Timestamps: *(03:43) - The Trust Tree: Cutting the budget to zero and starting over*(23:37) - The Playbook: Getting scrappy and redefining the marketing game*(33:39) - Quick Hits: Shafqat’s Quick HitsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for Demand Gen pros. The world's leading enterprise brands trust Qualified to instantly meet with buyers, right on their website, and maximize sales pipeline. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInFollow Shafqat on LinkedInLearn more about OptimizelyLearn more about Caspian Studios Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This episode features an interview with Todd Wells, CMO at Acumatica, a leading innovator in cloud ERP. In this episode, Todd provides insights into the marketing team’s responsibilities within Acumatica, how people want to be sold to, and what major sports sponsorships have done for brand awareness and helping his team break through to new audiences. Todd dives deep into his vision and work in brand awareness for Acumatica and how those efforts directly work with and alongside demand generation.Key Takeaways:It’s imperative to focus on brand awareness alongside demand generation.Explore innovative ways to market your brand to break into new audiences, whether it’s major sports sponsorship, airport ads, connected TV, etc.No matter how you market, always think of your individual personas: their wins, wants, and pain points. People want to see themselves in your marketing.Quote:“We've progressively been dipping our toes into just brand awareness as well, and so whether that's airport advertising, whether that's connected TV, whether that's sports, sponsorships, but all of those are really something that we've understood from the marketplace that there's, you know, especially from partners and in speaking to partners, what do they value? What do they want?...In our scenario, I think it happens interestingly very far down the funnel, and so where it's really critical and where the partners are asking for is really that conversion to win.”Episode Timestamps:*(02:45) - The Trust Tree: Acumatica’s criticality of awareness*(11:49) - The Playbook: How Acumatica reconciles their spend with partner spend*(28:01) - The Dust Up: Dust ups are a productive outcome of pushing the execution and strategies of business models*(29:47) - Quick Hits: Todd’s Quick HitsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for Demand Gen pros. The world's leading enterprise brands trust Qualified to instantly meet with buyers, right on their website, and maximize sales pipeline. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Todd on LinkedInLearn more about AcumaticaLearn more about Caspian Studios Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This episode features an interview with Christopher Willis, CMO and self-proclaimed Chief Pipeline Officer at Acrolinx, an AI platform that uses a unique linguistic analytics engine to “read” content and provide immediate guidance to improve it, transforming how the world’s biggest brands create high-performing content.In this episode, Christopher shares about why he and his team are focused on 1 to 1 equals 3 partner relationships and what that’s meant for the business, building trust between the sales, marketing and BDR teams, and how awareness and authenticity set up organizations for greater wins with prospective buyers. Christopher also talks about the partner ecosystem and why partner relationships are critical in making Acrolinx as successful as it is today.Key Takeaways:Zeroing in on 1 in 1 equals 3 strategic relationships with partners by crafting a product, an offering, and point of view in order to be able to identify as a content impact platform.Pushing a compensation model where everyone wins or loses together builds greater trust between sales, marketing and the BDR teams.The best results come out of hyper-personalization to prospective buyers, which enables teams to get granular with prospects through research and relationships.Quote:“The difference between then and now is the focus on the one in one equals three relationship that we're having with the businesses that we work with now. Businesses like MHP, which is a services organization owned by Porsche or Hitachi in Japan, or RWS where there's real value in the two companies working together that goes well beyond small technical and marketing relationships.”Episode Timestamps:*(14:31) - The Trust Tree: How Acrolinx is the TSA checkpoint for content inside of big business*(24:58) - The Playbook: Investing in relationships with partners matter*(41:41) - Quick Hits: Christopher’s Quick HitsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for Demand Gen pros. The world's leading enterprise brands trust Qualified to instantly meet with buyers, right on their website, and maximize sales pipeline. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Chris on LinkedInLearn more about AcrolinxLearn more about Caspian StudiosWordBirds Podcast: How HPE Is Revolutionizing Customer Experience With Content Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode, Theo shares Brightcove’s holistic go to market strategy, how and why to create a Netflix style experience, and the importance of collecting and harnessing the power of first-party data when it comes to video content. Theo also talks about how thinking and acting like a media company is the way forward for all marketers.Key Takeaways:Different personas need to be sold to differently. Be sure all messaging directly reflects the needs of a particular persona and that it’s not written for every potential buyer.A go to market strategy that’s worked for Brightcove: Treat buyers as individuals, personalize content, and since video is king - make good use of it.Create a Netflix style experience for your customers. Thinking and acting like a media company is the way forward.Quote:"It's ubiquitous. Now research shows that 90%, 97% in fact of recent video viewers would be more receptive to sales communications from a business after consuming their video content, so it's incredibly important that enterprises get on board with video as well.”Episode Timestamps:*(4:20) - The Trust Tree: Brightcove’s focus on “streaming” content strategies *(25:09) - The Playbook: Marketing to customers as customers and not simply as prospects*(38:53) - The Dust Up: Overcoming tension between marketing and sales*(42:56) - Quick Hits: Theo’s Quick HitsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for Demand Gen pros. The world's leading enterprise brands trust Qualified to instantly meet with buyers, right on their website, and maximize sales pipeline. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Theo on LinkedInLearn more about BrightcoveLearn more about Caspian Studios Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode, Spencer Dent, Founder of Clozd, provides insights for running effective win-loss programs that help companies see the bigger picture when it comes to product marketing and roadmapping. Spencer also shares Clozd’s three tiered approach to the buyer’s journey, the importance of getting feedback directly from clients, good or brutal, and how to make sure companies are visible to the right people at the right time.Key Takeaways:Continued education for the customer is paramount in showcasing your product’s or service’s value.An effective win-loss strategy is essential for product marketing and product road-mapping.Choosing to focus on nurturing your pipeline and thought leadership efforts not only helps to educate potential buyers on what you do but it also allows for more streamlined content creation and brand messaging.Quote(s):“ I think what you've seen in the last 10 years in terms of the evolution of rev ops, going from being like there's a marketing ops team and a sales ops team and whatever, and a customer success ops team, to a lot of companies are moving to a unified, there's one team that runs the whole customer journey that's responsible for reporting on the whole thing. Making sure all the systems and everything are tied together. We see that right across our clients. And the cool part about win loss is it's the companies that do well with win-loss and actually get the most value out of it, it has very little to do with who owns it, whether it's sales or marketing. It has everything to do with, do they have a culture that can accept feedback?”Episode Timestamps:*(04:17) - The Trust Tree: Why pulling buyer data is key to understanding why a deal happened or not*(24:17) - The Playbook: Clozd’s tactical approach to win-loss*(34:25) - Quick Hits: Spencer’s Quick HitsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for Demand Gen pros. The world's leading enterprise brands trust Qualified to instantly meet with buyers, right on their website, and maximize sales pipeline. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Spencer on LinkedInLearn more about ClozdLearn more about Caspian Studios Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.